


Remember the Days of the World

by Ketita



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Judaism, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-16
Updated: 2014-09-07
Packaged: 2017-12-20 10:02:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/885946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ketita/pseuds/Ketita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He fights alone for what the rest of humanity has forgotten, and doesn't even know to ask.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

To this day, Levi doesn't understand why nobody else seems to remember what the world had been like before. Some people have books, carefully hidden. Some people tell stories (mostly wrong). But the memories are gone, as if wiped away. There is little-to-naught left of culture, and Levi thinks people feel the lack, but don't even know what it is they're missing. Everybody around him seems to be floating in misery without context, life without past, no hope for a future. If anybody bothered to ask Levi, he could tell them about two thousand years of human history, all learned at his grandfather's knee. He could tell them that there had been great wars before, and terrible cataclysms. He could say that just because they don't know about any other survivors doesn't mean they aren't there - the world is a big place, more vast than anybody who grew up within three walls could ever fathom.

Of course, nobody asks, because nobody knows to.

Early on, he had realized that his family was Different. They didn't like their neighbors, and the neighbors didn't like them. Their foods were different, and they spoke a different language among themselves. None of the other kids knew why this was. Had they asked Levi, he could have told them that it had always been that way, according to his grandfather. Nobody ever liked them.  
But what the kids really wanted was to fight, so Levi fought. He was smallest, so he fought the hardest (it had always been that way; the weak against the mighty, his grandfather said, when he came home with a bloody nose for the Nth time that week). He fought more viciously than anybody else, and after a while, he started winning.

His parents seemed undecided about their family history. Often, his father would denounce it all as superstitious nonsense. _Why poison the boy's mind?_ he would shout. _Why does he have to bear this weight, when nobody else remembers?_ But at the end of every week his mother would light three candles and they would all sit and read from those selfsame stories, and Levi learned about the command to _remember the days of the world._

He learns hundreds of commands, and when he complains to his mother that it's impossible to remember them all, much less keep them, and what's the _point_ anyway – she smiles sadly and tells him to do his best. _We've always survived,_ she says. _If you don't remember, who will? It's not a choice. It's a responsibility._  
Levi thinks the rest of humanity is made of morons. Since nobody else seems to remember the point of living anymore, he does his best, and wakes up every morning and says _thank you for not making me one of them_. 

At fifteen, he has his own gang. They combat poverty by redistributing wealth, and Levi makes sure a good portion of it reaches his own family. His father tells him not to steal. Levi retorts that they're not the same as us, so what does it matter? The disappointed look on his father's face makes him wilt, and for a short time after that he confines his activities to bothering the other gangs. It's enough to keep him busy for awhile. 

Perhaps his father nurtures some resentment because Levi understands their people's teachings better than his father ever did. He picks up a third language like it's nothing, and is fascinated by the intricacies of several-hundred-year-old legal arguments. He understands that the laws of a king aren't necessarily the laws of morality, and that every phrase can be interpreted a hundred ways. With this understanding, he looks down on the primitive judicial system and finds the simple laws easy to circumvent. If the king wants his laws to apply to Levi, he'll have to _make_ it happen. 

The time he is finally taken by the police, his gang gives him up for lost, but Levi is unshaken. He calmly explains to the uniforms, over the course of several hours, why he is not responsible, and even had he been responsible they could not charge him, and that this is all assuming a crime actually took place. When he is finished, he strolls out, leaving confusion in his wake. From that day on, he is considered something of a legend, and Levi finds that he likes it. 

One day, a completely gratuitous fight with another gang is broken up by soldiers on horses. Levi finishes wiping the ground with someone twice his size, and looks up into a pair of disapproving blue eyes. He doesn't resist when they drag him away from the other thug. He knows better than to mess with soldiers. They aren't police, and will usually go for violence rather than legalese. He won't tell them his name, and he won't tell them where he lives. Eventually, they'll go away like the others, and leave this squalid part of town to continue tearing itself apart. 

This commander, however, isn't in a hurry to leave, and fixes Levi with a look that reminds him a bit too much of his father. 

"Why are you wasting your talents?" the blonde man says to him. "Your skill should be used to fight titans, not humans." 

_Your strength for-_

Levi stares at him, mouth open, unable to ignore absurd similarities with a story he had learned – _a bandit turned scholar, who became one of the greatest_ – and that's probably why he snorts and says, "I don't suppose you have a beautiful sister?" 

The commander just looks confused, and Levi is reminded that he's not _one of us_. He agrees to join the Survey Corps anyway. People might pretend that the titans are safely outside the walls, but Levi has grown up knowing there was more to the world, and that no wall stands forever. He is ready to take on bigger challenges. 

His parents aren't happy. Neither is his grandfather, now old and frail. 

"If somebody's coming for you, kill him first," Levi says, and receives a cuff for his efforts. 

"If you're going to quote, do it properly," his father says. But they let him go. 

It is his first time as a cog in the wheel and not the decision maker, and he's not sure he likes it. He shares his room with others, and after the first time somebody touches one of his hoarded books Levi decides to get promoted to his own room as quickly as possible. The barracks are like the streets – it only takes a few rounds of beating up his fellow trainees before they understand he's not to be messed with. Unlike the streets, however, their commanders are quick to mete out justice to troublemakers. Levi explains, with great detail, how he has done nothing wrong, but apparently the officer is too stupid to follow the argument, and gives him punishment duty. 

Erwin visits him, late at night, and he looks just as disappointed as he did when they first met. 

"You need to learn to control yourself," he says. 

"I am in perfect control," Levi responds. "I just do things differently." 

Erwin nods, and Levi feels like he actually _understands_. 

"Outside of the walls, we need people like you," Erwin says. "Doing things the same old way isn't getting us anywhere. Just get through this. Do it our way, and you'll earn the freedom to do it yours." 

Levi looks at him in silence, then out over the sleeping camp he's stuck guarding from nothing at all because they're safe inside the walls. 

"Okay," he says. 

At meals, explaining that _he can eat this, he can't eat that_ is too much of a pain, so he says he's vegetarian. He goes into the kitchen and terrorizes the staff to make sure it's clean and free of bugs, washes his hands before eating bread, and gains something of a reputation for being a clean-freak. Not entirely unearned, since now that he looks at the barracks he realizes how incredibly _filthy_ everything is and his mother would certainly not approve of him living in this kind of environment. Nobody else seems to want to bother, so Levi takes it upon himself. 

To everybody's surprise but his own, now that he's put his mind to it, he excels. Time after time he leaves the walls and looks at the world that's left, comparing it to the memories of his people. He fights titans for all of humanity that was destroyed and now lies dead and unremembered by the remnants. And he survives. 

He thinks of his namesake, who with his brother once wiped out an entire city for insult rendered. Perhaps that Levi is proud of the fighter he has become. 

Now the walls are shattered, the battle is on, and Levi's opinion of humanity has not risen in the face of their persistent denial. Luckily, his will to fight is completely independent of them and their approval.  
The trainees get younger, and the deaths multiply. Time after time, Levi finds himself on an empty battlefield, the only one of his squad still standing. In other squads he hears people crying in fear, and doesn't understand what they're doing here with that kind of attitude. The people whose side he chooses to fight by aren't the sniveling cowards, but the ones who when they find themselves with the sea in front and death behind them, choose to leap forward. 

He stands on a battlefield now, in the ruins of a no longer recognizable building, the sky far-off and hazy above him. Titans are in the distance, and the smell of blood and death scorches his nose. A persistent ache is starting in overworked muscles, but Levi loves that feeling. It means he's alive and fighting back. He takes a breath and prepares to rejoin the attack, when a cough from the side arrests his attention. It's Elli, bleeding heavily from somewhere Levi can't see, probably not long for this world. She says something with blood-flecked lips, and Levi heads towards her. He tries to stay with the dying as much as possible, reassuring them that somebody will remember, to the point where it's practically expected of him. Ignoring the filth, he kneels down, and listens to Elli's last words – and his mask of stone is shattered when Elli breathes out a phrase in a dead language that Levi hasn't heard anywhere except in his own home. 

Without thinking, he gives the traditional reply, and their eyes meet in recognition. 

"There are more of us," Elli breathes, and dies with a smile on her face. 

Levi stands up and screams agony to the heavens. He leaps up the side of a building to the roof, looking across the destruction towards where Wall Sina stands, its name a bastardization of the holy place that was once there. " _You said there wouldn't be another flood!_ " he cries, his voice cracking on words that nobody else would probably understand. 

No response reaches him, not even an echo. The titans are still out there, his comrades are still dead, and the age of miracles is over. But on that rooftop, alone of his squad and maybe of his people, Levi chooses to believe that the promise stands. That no matter how grim things seem, they will have their victory in the end. One day he will stand on that wall and look at a world empty of titans, a future ahead of him, the past safe in his memories. 

"This is my promise," he says, and before him lie split carcasses of titans, evaporating in the dull sunlight. The world is red. "Give me strength, and I will kill them all." 

He does not hear a reply. But he has strength. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the [Judaism](http://snkkink.dreamwidth.org/524.html?thread=439820#cmt439820) prompt on the kinkmeme, because I couldn't resist. How often do I get to write something this self-indulgent?  
> I wanted to fill it with references as much as possible, and I'm sure that some of these are a bit esoteric, so here are a few small explanations for those who care:
> 
> 1) Candles. It's customary to light candles for the Sabbath for the number of members in the nuclear family.
> 
> 2) What Levi learns with his grandfather is Gemara/Talmud, 1,500 year old tractates of Jewish law that also contain anecdotes and legends. A good chunk of it is in Aramaic. 
> 
> 3) Levi references the story of Reish Lakish and Rabbi Yochanan. Reish Lakish was a bandit whom Rabbi Yochanan convinced that his strength would be better used studying Torah, and allowed him to marry his sister. They were study partners for all their lives, and when Reish Lakish died, Rabbi Yochanan died shortly after from grief.
> 
> 4) "If somebody's coming to kill you, kill him first." Sanhedrin Tractate, page 72 side A. 
> 
> 5) The dietary restrictions are known as Kosher laws. Jews are only allowed to eat specific types of meat and it has to be killed a certain way, no blood, no bugs, no predatory birds, fish have to have fins and scales, no mixing milk and meat.
> 
> 6) Levi's namesake would be Levi from the Bible, who was one of the Twelve Tribes of Israel.
> 
> 7) According to the Bible, after the Flood God promised that he would never wipe out humanity again. 
> 
> 8) "Remember the days of the world." Deuteronomy 32:7. The command to learn history.
> 
> 9) Death behind and the sea ahead - when the Israelites left Egypt, they stood on the shores of the Red Sea, with the Egyptians chasing him. Moses prayed to God to ask what to do, and He said that they should move forward. Nachshon Ben Aminadav was the first one brave enough to jump into the water, and then the splitting of the Red Sea occurred.
> 
> Thanks to anybody who reads, and cares about my crazy headcanons :)


	2. Four a Year and a Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi's first year in the Scouting Legion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The sequel nobody asked for and which I never thought I'd write... but the idea wouldn't let go of me, and as the Jewish New Year is coming up, I decided to write it nonetheless.  
> It's sort of a conceptual sequel, in a way, because RtDotW doesn't have a clear timeline. This one has a slightly more fixed timeline, in that it covers a year, but the style is similar to the previous and builds upon it. It's not 100% canonical, since the previous ended up not being either.  
> Thanks to doughtier for the beta; any remaining issues are my own. And to Zee and momoicchi27 for the encouragement.
> 
> I hope you enjoy. 
> 
> Explanatory notes at the end.

_There are four beginnings of a year:_

_On the first of Elul is the new year for the tithe of the beasts_

Levi has always been part of a herd waiting to be culled. He was a criminal in Sina, dodging the law in a game where each round could be the last and any mistake could land him in prison or an unmarked grave.

Fall is in the air when he is taken from that herd and brought to another one, though in the Sina underground fall is hardly visible. Stagnant pools are visibly more so, the weight of moisture in the air becomes heavier, and the bite of chill is sharper in the dark hours of the morning. It's a season that's still early to call winter, that dead time when people hunker down in their shelters and try not to freeze to death. There is nothing good about fall, just a slide of anticipation as the weather turns harsher, the police more brutal with bad humor.

Now Sina is behind him.

The Scouting Legion trains aboveground, in the air, in the trees. For the first time in his life Levi has a first-hand view of the heralds of autumn. The sky which has become his home has taken on a new shade of blue, almost unnoticeable but enough to put him on edge. Flying among the pockmarked trees he has come to know as well as his own bed, he sees the moment brown edges the green, the instant a leaf flutters uncertainly with the promise of fleeing the branch. He feels the sharpness in the morning air as it enters his lungs during the morning run, and pulls his thin blanket just a bit tighter around himself at night.

He has food in his stomach, clothes on his back, a clean bed to sleep in, and powerful blades in his hands. Yet he skips morning roll call as often as he can get away, because to him there is nothing more sickening than standing among the ranks of cattle knowing, _knowing_ , that the faces around him will be carved out from among the living one by one.

He knows that this is only the beginning.

_On the first of Shvat is the new year for the trees, according to the house of Shamai. The house of Hillel says, on the fifteenth._

Levi still feels rather like a new recruit himself when he is sent to check out the new crop. None belong to the Scouting Legion, not yet; these are just the plantings. They will have three years to train, to ripen, before they can be plucked and tossed away to rot in the ground, titan fodder.

He thinks sending him here is a form of kindness on Erwin's part, because looking at the young sprouts he feels old. The dark winter has made him a veteran, but now he is reminded that being a veteran means he has survived this long. The earth and trees are still cold and dead (how quickly Levi has grown used to living aboveground!), but there is an odd smell in the air, the smell of promise. He doesn't want to feel optimism, and tries to escape the bright inquisitive eyes of the trainees as they follow him around, the spark in them reflecting the unrelenting spark of life that persists in him. He may yet live.

Perhaps spring will shake him out of the dry shadow he's trapped in. All the others have bunked together in winter, sharing warmth and growing to care. Only Levi is alone. His friends have died, and he spends the short days and long nights by himself, the persistent cold in his chest matching the weather outside.

Others in the Corps attempt to befriend him, though they are few and far between. He can tolerate Hange most days, but beyond that – he cannot. The fact that Erwin takes time out of his day to notice this may be enough to wake him up.

_On the first of Nisan begins the year for the Kings and the Festivals._

He holds his place in formation as Erwin is crowned with a jewel about his neck. His face is blank but he can't help the flutter in his chest as Erwin talks of freedom. For this moment of hope, for this feeling, for the promise of escaping the walls that hold them and the slavery that binds them – he will fight and bleed and die.

_The first of Tishrei is the start of the count of the years, the fallow years, the Jubilee, the planting, and the vegetables._

The seventh month has started, and with it the new year. It is supposed to be a day of joy, he has been told, but all he can think about is how strange it is that his year starts in the seventh month, when for everybody else it begins the first. It is hard for him to believe that an entire year in the Scouting Legion has passed, the days counted in the names of dead comrades.

He is not the same person he was this time last year.

Fall sneaks up on him unnoticed. Living aboveground agrees with him so much that he has to pull back and remind himself that this is something to be grateful for. It's difficult, because he has grown to care for the people around him, and he hurts.

Should he want to, he could find companionship for his celebration. But he knows that everybody else celebrates the new year in midwinter, and it will not do to draw attention to his difference. Instead, he exerts himself to find at least a few of the traditional foods.

He acquires apples, but no honey (this year will not be a sweet one). He has no beets (their enemies will not flee before them). It is too early for pumpkin (the verdict will stand). He has never seen a pomegranate (and he has no good deeds to speak of anyway).

What he does find is a fish head, which he gazes at mournfully that evening at dinner and ignores the odd looks he receives. The fish head symbolizes children, which is a request he will not make. He cannot imagine bringing a child into this terrible world they live in.

So he is left with the one request: to be the head and not the tail.

That night, Erwin promotes him to Squad Leader. Levi doesn't respond outwardly, but he is terrified. He looks out over the roomful of soldiers and considers that today is the Day of Remembrance. Perhaps every day for him, in a way, is a Day of Remembrance.

Today they are judged, he thinks, and sees the pallor of death hanging over too many of the faces in the crowd that look up at him hopefully. He wonders if death descends upon him, too, this night. He wonders how, when today is a day of judgment, he can possibly celebrate.

Still, the worst is yet to come.

* * *

 

( _The Day of Atonement_

Levi has done terrible things in his life. Erwin knows this, and relies upon Levi to continue to do so. Levi agrees, if only because his hands are stained such a deep red that a little more cannot possibly make a difference.

He would make amends, but the dead can never forgive him. Even so, even though he knows that it is futile and stupid and dangerous, he fasts until he collapses somewhere around lunchtime. Despite Erwin's fury, Levi refuses to eat until the stars have risen.

He has requests to make on this day, if not for himself then for others, and he thinks of all the people who could use a chance, who deserve life. He watches the sun sink in the sky as the day dies.

_Who will live and who will die, who by the sword and who by the beast—_

When he finally eats it is with a spinning head and heavy limbs. He should feel relief, he knows, but dread coils in his belly. It is too late. Their destinies have been set.

Only late at night when he climbs into bed does he feel a sudden lightness. He cannot change his past. What has been erased, is gone. What remains, will remain forever. All he can do is look to the future.)

* * *

 

_And all the denizens of the world will pass before Him like-_

_"-sheep," Levi says, reading the yet-unfamiliar words of the prayer slowly._

_"No," his grandfather corrects. "That's a mistranslation. It says that all the denizens of the world will pass before Him, in rank and file, like soldiers."_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As before, this fic contains several references.  
> 1\. The quote about the years appears at the beginning of the tractate of Rosh Hashana, and discusses the four Jewish New Years.  
> There are four beginnings of a year:  
>  _On the first of Nisan begins the year for the Kings and the Festivals._ Regardless of when crowned, the King's reign would be counted from this New Year.  
>  _On the first of Elul is the new year for the tithe of the beasts._ A percentage of animals were tithed to the Temple each year.  
>  _The first of Tishrei is the start of the count of the years, the fallow years, the Jubilee, the planting, and the vegetables._ The 'actual' New Year, as in the time from which years are numbered. The month of Tishrei is the 7th month of the Jewish calendar (Nisan is the first)  
>  _On the first of Shvat is the new year for the trees, according to the house of Shamai. The house of Hillel says, on the fifteenth._ There is a Jewish law that when a new tree is planted, for three years its fruit can't be eaten. This date marks the count of the years for the tree. 
> 
> 2\. The Day of Atonement is the fast day each year when all sins are forgiven and Jews can get a blank slate for the upcoming year (doesn't work for interpersonal sins, though). 
> 
> 3\. "All the denizens of the world will pass before him like-" The words in Hebrew are 'kivnei maron', which is commonly understood to mean sheep. However, professor Hanoch Albeck, who studied the Mishna, explains that the correct word would be 'kivnomaron', which refers to soldiers marching past. This quote appears in the second verse in the tractate of Rosh Hashana, but is also included in the prayers on the Day of Atonement.
> 
> 4\. Rosh Hashana, New Year's, is called the Day of Remembrance in the Torah. 
> 
> 5\. There is a whole collection of symbolic foods eaten on Rosh Hashana. The most well-known is apples and honey, but other traditions have many others: apples and honey, black eyed peas, pumpkin, pomegranate, leek, fish head, sheep's head, beet, dates, and more. Each one symbolizes a request for the new year based on word play.


End file.
